Why was poisoning wells unthinkable according to Just Law doctrine? Surely poisoning the drinking supplies of enemy villages might shorten a war. But, it was understood that doing so would make it impossible to return to peace. And that’s the aim of war: to return to a more just peace.

So, while we will hear — and should listen to — arguments about how Shock and Awe will reduce the number of casualties, we also need to think about the effect of launching 800 missiles to make cities unliveable. If our soldiers are not greeted in the streets with cries of joy, then we will have lost the war.

Let’s call the U.S. strategy for the attack of Baghdad by its true name — it’s not “Shock and Awe,” it is Terrorism.

I know it is hard for some people, even some people who don’t like the idea of the coming war, to equate what happened in New York with what is likely to happen halfway around the world.

However, when I read about the United States’ “Shock and Awe” strategy I imagine 800 Boeing 757s, each one crashing into a New York building in a ball of fire, a new World Trade Center disaster every four minutes for two days — terrified people jumping from windows to escape certain death by fire, terrified people running from the dust clouds in panic as buildings collapse, grieving loved ones with pictures begging strangers for news, and the sickening smell afterwards. Only it will be 800 times worse, because airplanes are not *designed* to kill people, but the United States will drop weapons designed to kill. In addition to the fire and explosion, thousands of little daisy cutters will rip the flesh of office workers, janitors, restaurant workers, firemen, policemen, rescuers, people on the street.

If the U.S. “Shock and Awe” program is not Terrorism, we have lost the meaning of the word.